Welcome to my Nuzlocke run, everybody! For those unfamiliar with the concept, a Nuzlocke challenge involves a person playing a game of Pokemon under additional, self-imposed rules and making a comic or fanfiction of the result. Despite the fact that this story is a dramatization of an actual playthrough of the game, I went into this with some pre-existing plot ideas, and I plan to give you a strong central story. Here are the rules:

-If a Pokémon faints, it's 'dead' and must be placed permanently in the designated 'cemetery' box.

-Only the first Pokémon in each location (route, town, or dungeon) can be caught, including gifts.

-If the first Pokémon found is in the same evolutionary family as a living Pokémon I already have, I can take ONE mulligan on that route/dungeon and treat the next Pokémon as 'first.'

-Shinies are exempt from the 'first Pokémon' rule because they are a jackpot by nature.

-Nickname everything (in this case, after a Fire Emblem character).

-No legendaries. Reshiram is permissible for the fights against N and Ghetsis ONLY.

-No breeding.

The purpose of the exercise is more than simply a challenge, more than creating something to write about. It's a reason to familiarize oneself with even weaker Pokemon, and to learn to care about every single one of them. I hope you enjoy the result!

Chapter 1: Outset

Layla! As soon as you choose your Pokémon, your journey begins! Professor Juniper's words still bounced around my head as I stared at the box. I was almost drooling with impatience to open it, but we had promised… to wait… for…

"Bianca!" Cheren snapped. "There she is!" His forehead was shoved against my window, and he was gazing down at my front walk. Cheren and Bianca had been my best friends since childhood, and we were all sixteen now. It seemed only natural that we all set out on our Pokémon journeys at the same time.

Cheren was dressed in a white T-shirt with a red 'Y' pattern, some far-too-tight black jeans, blue loafers, a blue jacket, and his trademark glasses. He was skinny, with blue eyes and a serious face, and his medium-length black hair hung around his head except for a single lock that stuck straight up. He was definitely the smart guy of the group, but he could be a dick sometimes and had this tendency to get way competitive, sometimes to the point where he missed the big picture.

We both listened in silence as Bianca stumbled up the stairs. She opened by bedroom door with the overenthusiasm of a comic relief sitcom character, and I winced as it slammed against the wall. "Am I late again? Soooo-oooorry!" Okay, maybe she is a comic relief sitcom character. Bianca's got blonde hair in this weird poofy hairstyle that's wider than her hips, and green eyes. She wears a white dress, an orange blazer, orange leggings, and white shoes. She's also got a hat like a huge green beret with a white stripe and a big ol' green bag that she's always lugging around.

"Bianca, I've known you can't get anywhere on time for ten years, but seriously…" Cheren grumbled. "This is the day I become a man! They day you two become women!" I smiled. This was a right of passage.

"I know…" she whined. "Sorry, Layla. Sorry, Cheren. So, where are the Pokémon? They were delivered to Layla's house, so Layla gets first pick." I could see Cheren winding up to deliver a protest about how they were only delivered here because my house was dead center of this crummy little hamlet, so I made a move for the box. Cheren surprised me as I got there by controlling himself and reluctantly agreeing with Bianca, and they both flanked me eagerly.

I swallowed, looked back at my friends over my shoulder, and opened the lid. There was a note. "I've brought three Pokémon, one for you and one for each of your friends. Please settle your choices politely, and enjoy!" I sighed. We had already worked this out. We weren't children. Reaching in, I took the Pokeball whose cushion was marked with a fireball. I knew not to screw around. That little fireball was like a personal guarantee to me – I would get power, if I could control it. I relished the challenge as I opened the Pokeball.

In a flash, a little orange-and-black piglet was released onto my desk. He grinned up at me, his close-set black ears like the folds of a bandanna. "Hello," he said. "You must be my new master. I'm Tepig. Who're you?"

"My name's Layla," I replied. I felt something deep inside me well up, some sort of deep joy like learning that you have a little brother. Or maybe it was gas. I don't know, I've never had a little brother. "You have a name yet, little guy?" I was dimly aware of Bianca nabbing a Snivy next to me. The Tepig shook his head. "Alright… I'm gonna call you Tormod. Does that sound good?" The Tepig's eyes got really big and watery, and before I could tell him otherwise, he had leapt into my arms for a hug. I cradled him numbly. I hadn't been touched like that in years.

Met Tormod in Nuvema Town!
Male Tepig lv. 5.
Lonely nature, Blaze.
Strong willed.

In the mirror, I caught a glimpse of Cheren with his brand new Oshawott, talking about how this was always the one he had wanted. I shifted my gaze to myself. Tormod had burrowed his nose past my black jacket and against my white tank top. I was also wearing long, torn jeans, my black and pink shoes and armband, and my white and pink cap. My bag – I travelled lighter than Bianca – rested on my bed. I looked at my face. Despite the long sleeves, I had managed to tan pretty nicely so far this summer, and it made my blue eyes stand out more. Behind me my red hair spilled out the back of my hat in unchecked waves – it clashed with the pink, but I was hardly Unova's greatest fashion crime. "This young lady is a Pokémon trainer," I said to myself, and broke out in a wolfish grin. FUCK YES.

"Yes she is!" Bianca said, and I looked back to her, trying to figure out which of us she was talking about. "Gimme a hug!" she cried, advancing, and I remembered why I don't like contact.

"Hey, no touchie," I muttered, stepping back. Bianca blinked and nodded in realization.

"Sorry… hey, wanna battle instead?" She smiled innocently. "I've never done it before, and I want to get a feel for it."

"Right here, in the bedroom?" Cheren spluttered, looking up from his new otter friend. "I know they aren't strong yet, but won't that wreck all Layla's stuff?" With Bianca as the heart and Cheren as the brains, I had gradually become the muscle of our little troupe. I think Cheren had started to become afraid of me… or maybe he had a crush on me. It was hard to tell what Cheren was keeping under that swollen forehead. At any rate, he'd work it out on his own.

"I'm fine with it," I said. "It's furniture. It'll be alright." Clapping happily, Bianca took her place across the room from me. She extracted her Pokeball (with difficulty, bless her soul) from her bag and tossed it, revealing her Snivy. I nodded at Tormod. "Ready?" He nodded back, and I looked up, satisfied. "Tormod, use Tail Whip!"

"Link, use Leer!" Bianca shot back. Tormod obediently turned and shook his ass at the Snivy, hoping to bait it into making more mistakes with a single glance. Oh, and he glanced. It was quite intimidating, but the real hostilities had to start soon. "Tackle!" we cried in near-unison. Snivy proved himself faster and got in the first strike, causing Tepig to stumble back, but Tepig's tackle hit dead-on and sent Snivy sprawling. "Yeah, a critical hit!" I cried out.

Bianca must've realized her sudden disadvantage, because she blurted out, "Link! Get out of there!" Obediently, Link escaped the next tackle by jumping up on my bed… then my computer desk… then up onto my wall… "Get behind him!" Bianca cried out, recovering. "Tackle again!" And he did. Tormod couldn't keep up with Snivy's speed, and the snake hit him again. He stumbled and shrugged it off.

"One more, Tormod!" I called, as Snivy circled around behind again. Tormod sprang off his powerful front legs and flipped over in midair, landing hammy-shoulder first against Link's back and sending the snake crashing to the floor. "Nice! That makes us one and zero!"

"Easy, Layla," Cheren cautioned as he walked over with a Potion for our worn-out Pokémon. "You don't want to break through the floor in addition to knocking everything over." Bianca and I noted the pawprints all over the room and the toppled stuff in embarrassment. To be fair, most of it was Snivy. "Besides, now that I've healed your Tepig's wounds, I want to battle as well!"

"Alright, no problem," I said with a shrug. "Tormod, you up for round 2?" "I think I'm up for round 2," he said. "We think we're up for round 2!" I echoed confidently.

"Right on!" Cheren pointed at Tormod and I. "I've analyzed your fighting style, so there's no way I can lose! Go, Megaman!" His Oshawott waddled forward. "Use Tackle!"

"Tormod, Tail Whip!" Megaman crashed into my pig, but not before he had given it a good shake of his ass. This time, I had the faster Pokémon. "Tormod, now use Tackle!"

"Keep Tackling, Mega! And keep it in the middle of the room, we can win without tearing this place apart!" I watched our Pokémon clash head on, and then again. Both of them were dazed, but I could see that Tormod's defenses were holding up better. Since he was also faster, this put Cheren in a bad situation "No! You can do it!"

"It's no use!" Megaman grunted. "I'm sorry, Cheren!"

"Tormod, take out the trash!" I called, and he got beneath the Oshawott and pushed up. Megaman was knocked through the air and landed… just short of the wastebasket. Oh well, it was his first try. "Alright, that's enough!"

"Damn!" Cheren walked over to Megaman and helped him up. "That was tough. Why didn't my strategy work?"

"Tormod here was doing more damage per hit," I said, picking up my pig. "Knowing my strategy isn't going to do you any good if you don't adjust your won strategy to deal with it."

"You're right…" Cheren sighed. "Oh well, just more room for us to improve, eh, Megaman? Come on, guys, let's go apologize to Layla's mom for wrecking the room."

"Oh… yeah…" Bianca giggled nervously, getting up from admiring my Wii (the largest thing left in the room without Snivy pawprints on it). "I'm coming!" I was the last down the stairs, and I could already hear Cheren apologizing to my mother.

"Oh, there you are, Layla." My mother looked much like an older version of myself, except her hair was a more generic chestnut brown and she wore dresses. "Cheren already told me, but I could hear it upstairs. Those must've been some battles!"

"We're REALLY sorry," Bianca stressed.

"Oh, it's nothing. Just an inconvenience. I remember my first Pokémon… I'd have done the same thing." She shook her head, turning back toward the living room. "Professor Juniper was looking for you kids, so why don't you go see her?"

"Oh, right. Probably to see how the Pokémon are doing with us." Cheren turned to his Oshawott. "I'm gonna grab another Potion for the little guy before we go see her, I haven't healed him from the battle yet."

"I've gotta go pick up some things at my house," Bianca said, looking at the floor. "Why don't we meet at the lab in ten minutes?"

"Sounds good," I called to their retreating backs.

"Oh, honey, don't forget your Ex-transceiver," my mom called from over her newspaper.

"It's called a cross-transceiver, mom," I chuckled. She made an ambivalent noise. Mom had always been sort of laid back, but I was sure we hadn't always been so distant with each other. I couldn't blame her, though, considering… "…bye," I muttered awkwardly as I walked out the front door.


Cheren and I met up near Juniper's lab, a block or so from our house. There really wasn't much to the town – not even a Pokémon center until Accumula. "Bianca's late," he said after a few minutes of small talk and snacks (Cheren ate some sunflower seeds, while I had a stick of jerky), and I grimaced. Cheren could really charge his words with meaning. "Would you go check on her?" I didn't respond, I just started walking.

I could hear the shouting from three houses away. "Absolutely not!" Bianca's dad shouted. "I didn't even want you to have the Pokémon!"

"But daaaaaddy…"

"But nothing! Pokémon lead to journeys all over the country, and people like to talk about how those journeys are valuable experiences that lead to meaningful friendships and life lessons, but I know what kind of life lessons are really happening out there!" I walked in at this point. "DEATH! Your Pokémon could die-" Bianca's father, a fat man with a red face and great curls of blond hair, snapped his fingers for emphasis – "Just like that! And not just your Pokémon, YOU. Two weeks ago I had to embalm a girl not a year older than you, Bianca, because she got killed in an accident at the Driftveil Gym!"

Okay, maybe that requires some explanation. Bianca's dad works in Mistralton, in a funeral home near the Celestial Tower (there's a big cemetery there for those who want to be buried near their Pokémon). He flew in every weekend, since one of Mistralton's helicopter pilots also lives in town. I suppose it would make sense for a guy with a job like that to want to shelter his kid. Still, Bianca was a big girl now and she had to start making her own decisions sometime. "Daddy, please, those are one in ten thousand-"

"We really should let her go," Bianca's mom said placatingly from the other room. "Maybe just to get her first badge for a start, and then we'll see-"

Bianca's dad had been regaining his energy for anger, and now it burst out again. "None of this baby step bullshit! That's exactly how we'll lose her! And you!" He turned to me. "Stay out of this, carrot top! Just because your mom let you run around in the forest unattended since you were little-"

"I'm not saying anything," I said, which was true – I was kinda hoping he'd calm down just from embarrassment at having company watching him rage.

"I'm putting my foot down," he grumbled, but he did quite the opposite – he collapsed into a recliner and put his feet up. Bianca seemed to take this as an invitation to leave, and urgently beckoned for me to follow her out the door. I closed the door quietly behind us.

"Sorry you had to deal with all that," she said quietly as Cheren came into sight. "He'll warm up to the idea."


Juniper's lab was a little different from what I had expected. No giant computers, no surgical equipment, no smell of preservatives. There was a full wall of books and a computer that looked like it was designed for function over form. A simple medical examination table was present, along with what looked like archaeology tools. But Juniper studies Pokémon origins, so I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. Less surprising was that she lived here; many of the older businesses in Unova still had living quarters in-house, and I know she wasn't the first Professor Juniper in her family.

"You guys are here!" she said. "Perfect timing. Now, whip out your balls!" We all stared. "Let's see those Pokémon!" she paraphrased. Relieved, we all released our Pokémon. Juniper bent down and stared at them all, then reached to pick up Tormod, but stopped halfway. "Your Pokémon are really bonding with you guys fast… have you already had a battle?"

"Yeah, Layla fought both of us and won!" Bianca trilled.

"Well, one at a time…" I said sheepishly.

"Really? That's impressive." Juniper got up. "I suppose you three are going to travel around Unova, take in the sights, maybe take the gym challenge?" After hearing our muttered assents, she smiled. "Then I have something in my front pocket for you guys!"

"…What," Cheren said, speaking for all of us.

"A Pokédex!" She pulled three phone-like devices from the front pocket of her lab coat.

"Oh, sweet, the internet!" I said, grabbing them. I flipped mine open as I handed the other two to my friends. "And a catalog of some kind."

"Yeah, I'm taking a page from the book of the legendary Professor Oak and sending a bunch of kids out to gather data for a national Pokémon catalog for me! You don't have to, of course, but I'd appreciate it if you three gathered data on whatever you catch!"

"But won't data from kids turn out wildly exaggerated or wholly false like in those foreign 'Dexes?" Cheren asked piercingly.

"COME!" Juniper shouted over him, walking past us toward the door. "Let's go to the edge of town, I have to teach you kids to catch some Pokeymanz!"

"I guess we should follow her," I suggested. They agreed, although Cheren rubbed his temples.

We had hardly taken ten steps out of the lab when my mom nearly bumped into us. "Oh… hey, kids. I see you're getting ready to leave." She nodded approvingly at our packed bags. "This isn't as hard for the new generation as it used to be, I'm sure you'll be fine." She rummaged through her purse, muttering about how terrible itemfinders used to be. "Ah, here we go!" She presented us each with folded pieces of paper. "Maps of Unova! I'm glad I taught you all how to read these last year!"

"Wow, thanks, Mrs. Black!" Bianca said, Cheren echoing her. "We'll see you soon, I promise!" We started to walk off toward Route 1, but a glance from my mom stopped me.

"Layla…" she said, smiling sadly. Arceus, I hated tender moments. I wonder if they were uncomfortable between everybody as they were between the two of us.

"Mom, I'll be fine. You were younger than me when you did this." I reluctantly smiled at her. "I'm not a kid anymore."

"No…" mom looked away. "You haven't been my little girl for a while…" she swallowed and turned back. "But you've still got some maturing to do. And so do Bianca and Cheren… Cheren even more than Bianca, I think. Look after them, okay?"

I opened my mouth to speak, but was interrupted by Bianca's distant cry. "Come on, Layla, I want us to take our first step out of town together!"

I smiled; that was so fucking cheesy. "Yeah, I'll make sure everything goes alright." I turned away. "I'll talk to you soon, mom, call me any time."

Well, this should be interesting, not least because I haven't cross-played since Crystal first allowed female PCs. Yes, I'm a male despite Layla being female. I have my reasons.

I'd appreciate any questions, comments, or critiques. If you don't have anything nice to say, I'm still interested in hearing it.

Next: Friends and Enemies in Route 1, Accumula Town, and Route 2.

Nuzlocke challenge (c) Nuzlocke

Pokemon (c) Nintendo and Game Freak

Layla (c) me